My brothers and I did a patrol of the rice fields and busted these 5 early in the morning on the 4th. We got soaked, but we filled the freezer with tasty pork!



Went out again in the evening and added 2 more to the list!



Here are details of how we hunt rice fields:

Each rice field is approx 500 yards by 500 yards (if I had to guess) with roads around the perimeter. The first place we hunted (this farmer has 2 seperate farms) had about 12 fields all of which were, as of last year, turned into grazing fields for the time being. Some are actively being grazed (shorter grass and weeds) while the others are being grown (tall grass and weeds) These fields are still surrounded by levies and after all this rain had water in them. The second farm is actively being farmed for rice and is irrigated and filled with rice plants. (same type perimeter roads)

What we do is this:

The farmer has a 1 ton flat bed with a rack that snaps into place on the bed. 3 shooters stand in the rack which puts their feet about 6" above the top of the truck cab. The truck drives around the fileds on the roads (private) and when the shooters see hogs rooting in the fields they stomp on the floor of the rack and the driver stops. Once the truck comes to a top the shooters can chamber a round and begin shooting. (no round can be chambered while the truck is moving) Sometimes the driver will yell to un-load and hold on because depending on which way the hogs begin to run he can sometimes cut them off and turn them back into the field which means more time to throw lead at them.

This is mainly done just at day light and right before dark, but can also be done with spot lights at night. The most weve gotten in one run is 13...Sometimes you see dozens of hogs...sometimes nothing...ya'll know how hogs are!

The hard part is finding the hog in the field once he is down....When you are walking through that stuff it is easy to loose your sense of direction.

Great fun and good practice judging distance and taking moving shots.

Congrats on filling the freezer!

I certainly understand that those hogs can do immense crop damage and getting rid of them is to the farmer's advantage. But short of lifting the dead ones out of the rice field with a helicopter, how do you keep from damaging the rice plants between the dead hog and the perimeter? Or do you only shoot the ones in fallow rice fields?

Cody, that sounds like a boat-load of fun! Congrats on the hunt! What calibers are y'all shooting?

We drag the hogs out on foot from the fields....Really big ones we have used 4 wheelers....If you take it easy you dont tear up much...Much more would be destroyed by the hogs. Most of these were killed in the dormant fields that are grazed by cattle.

My brothers were shooting a 270 and a 7mm Mag....I was shooting my Remington 700-Police in 308 (the camo rifle)